Wednesday, 25 July 2012

The last twelve months have been a particularly
intense one for me and Naman—my husband . One filled with coincidences &
milestones. A chance meeting between Naman and the amazing Jayapriya Vasudevan (Jacaranda
literary agency) in Singapore, led to him writing a book on the life of
Superstar Rajinikanth. Suddenly our life was taken over by Thalaivar (Headman in Tamil) and I became the unofficial
chronicler of a behind-the-scenes making-of the-novel-on-the-life-of-the-Superstar
record. Naman was in Chennai researching the book, and during one of his rare coming-back-to-earth
moments, he mentioned his conversation with this incredible young man absolutely
devoted to Superstar. Karthik is the president of RBSI – Rajini Biggest
Superstar of India fanpage on FB, which currently has 70,000 fans. Incredible! How does it feel to be an
individual who has devoted his every waking moment to his living god. I had to find out.So hear it
straight from Chennai based Kamalakannan (Karthik) Sekar, the boy who would
prefer to be simply known as “Karthik – A true fan of Superstar Rajini.”

Karthik's favourite picture of Superstar

a. What is the one
thing you want to achieve/ have already achieved in this life?The one thing which I achieved is I got the
blessings of Superstar. The thing which I yet want to achieve is to make my
parents and the people in my country proud which will finally create a smile on
my Thalaivar’s face, making him feel proud of his fans.

b. Why do you feel
such strong devotion for Thalaivar?Devotion for Thalaivar Rajini came because of the
love and respect which I have on him. He is a humble man who creates new
records in the box office and still says “He is nothing”, he never forgets his
past nor his fans. He is a positive magnet (rajini "KANTH") and thus he attracts
all positive people towards him. He cares about the lives of his fans, advising
them to take care of their family first and being responsible citizens. The
love which he has for us and what we have for him is something that cannot be
explained in words. The audio which he released for fans from the hospital, the
words he used in the letter which he wrote for fans proved that. True devotion
comes only for God and the man in the God’s status – Thalaivar Rajini.

c. You mentioned
that on Thalaivar's birthday you the RBSI team prefer to do charity work, it is
a really genuine sentiment. How did this idea come about? The idea of doing
charity work came from Thalaivar’s favorite line “Be Good, Do Good”, The
greatest thing is to do good to others. Instead of spending money on Milk Abishekam, crackers, we decided to
do something useful for the needy. We served food for the physically challenged
people and for the people in the old age homes… its still going on. We get
a sense of happiness and satisfaction when we see a smile in the face of those
innocent people.

d. What is a typical
day for you and the RBSI team? The main reason for RBSI’s reach is because of our unique posts. Unlike other pages which update once in a month, we update daily irrespective of any other news on that day. We brand our posts with a LOGO, and with attractive captions such as “RBSI – Morning message (where we share a thought of the day from Thalaivar), RBSI – Pick (pic) of the day (sharing an unique
photo of Thalaivar), RBSI – Things to think (fan questions), RBSI – Fan
of the week (recognizing the most active fan on the page), RBSI – Classic Collections (sharing a rare classic photo.)

As thousands of fans trust us and follow us, it’s
our responsibility to share only authentic news and so we are very careful about
that. We ask suggestions from fans to develop the page, RBSI encourages the
talents of the fans by giving them chance to design on special days and sharing
their works to thousands of fans and fans feel happy when their work is
recognized at a mass level, RBSI promotes the creative aspect by sharing good
documentaries and short films. We update minute details about Superstar which
are unknown to many fans and they tend to show more interest on the page. Till
now no money has been spent in Facebook Ads to promote the page. As Thalaivar
says, “RBSI is made out of love” – “Ithu
anbu samrajyam”. We celebrate Superstar’s birthdays and his movie releases by
having a common profile picture. It is great when thousands of fans have the
same profile picture.

And last but not the least it’s because of the
fans, The love which they have on Thalaivar Rajini which makes our page going.

Karthik & Superstar

e. Can you tell me a little more
about the other RBSI team members? TheRBSI admin team comprises of 10 hardcore fans of
Thalaivar. We met only because of Thalaivar. We weren’t blood
relationships, we weren’t friends, we weren’t acquaintances. But we became brothers
because of what we have in common—our love for Superstar Rajini. It’s also the great support by
the RBSI admin team which keeps it fresh and active.

A few months after RBSI started, I got a call from
Prabhu—A true fan of Thalaivar who works in a Multinational company and also
takes up charity works in the name of Thalaivar on special days—Prabhu is a
very good human by nature and is like my brother who extended support during
the critical stages of RBSI. He appreciated me for RBSI’s good work, RBSI had
only 2000 members at that point of time, Prabhu as a token of love gave me the first
day first show ticket for“ENTHIRAN
– The Robot.” It was a great honor as the first day first show ticket
for a Superstar movie is very precious. He put RBSI in touch with Superstar’s
official fan club in Chennai at Saidapet introducing me to the fan club head
Ravi. RBSI was again recognized and appreciated there.

The other admins are Ilayaraja (creative person and
one of the reasons for RBSI’s uniqueness), Nandhu (passionate Thalaivar fan who
takes up all works in RBSI), Selin (Created the RBSI wordpress website – www.rbsi.in now
not in use) , Selva (edits creative videos), Saravana Kumar (takes up designing
in RBSI), Saravana J (content creator, very fast in updating), Chidambaranadan
(classy punches), Dhanen (philosophical posts from Thalaivar movies).

f. You have nearly 70,000 fans of
RBSI page. What are your future plans for this community? Our plan is to cross 100,000 mark before the release
of Superstar’s next movie – KOCHADAIYAAN. Our first plan is to make RBSI get
Thalaivar’s blessings and will have to discuss to him about transforming his
greatest empire in the internet to a responsible medium/organization to serve
the society. Whatever he tells us, we will follow … But we are very firm in
getting his blessings as RBSI is not just a page, it represents thousands
of true good hearted fans.

True devotion is rare—you
will agree—and Karthik & the RBSI team are the real thing! I am especially
touched by the team taking on charity work to celebrate Thalaivar’s
birthday. You can find RBSI here https://www.facebook.com/Rajini.B.S.IndiaRajinikanth--The Definitive Biography by Naman Ramachandran will be released by Penguin on 12/12/12, the day the world is supposed to end but will not because Rajinikanth will save the day.